Hedging your bets (or betting your hedges)

Normally we would not advise planting Elder (Sambucus nigra) in any form of hedging. It is a bit of a thug. But a couple of bushes - Elderberry Trees - planted in hedging or elsewhere will produce enough flowers to keep even a gluttonous family like ours in elderflower cordial all year (by the way, the gluttony includes giving bottles to our friends and family).

This is our family recipe, and we think it makes the best elder flower cordial we have ever tasted.

You will need:

• 35 fresh elder flower heads – always pick the sweet smelling ones (which tend to be a bit buttery in colour and which do not drop petals when shaken)
• 2 oranges, rough sliced
• 2 lemons, also rough sliced
• 2oz tartaric or citric acid – we prefer citric which makes for a more lemony taste, but some of our friends like tartaric. You can buy either from a shop that sells winemaking stuff and you can get citric acid from your local chemist.
• 3 pints boiling water
• 3lb granulated sugar, (if you are worried about your sugar intake, you can use the equivalent of granulated Splenda (it is very light so follow the instructions which substitute volume for weight….)
• 1 Camden tablet per gallon of cordial (these come from “winemaking stuff” shops and are brilliant – they kill the natural yeasts that arrive with the elder flowers and allow you to store the cordial for years without it going fizzy). If you do not use them, then you can deep freeze the cordial you want to keep for Christmas….
• One or two large containers (the size depends on how much you make at once)
• Glass or food grade plastic bottles with airtight caps
• a Siphon tube
• J-cloths or wine filtering fabric
• A large sieve

Instructions:

• Boil the water and dissolve the sugar in it. Allow it to cool properly.
• Add the orange and lemon slices to the cool sugar water
• Stir in and make sure the tartaric or citric acid is dissolved
• Add the elder flower heads.
• Cover the ghastly mess with a lid or cloth (or use a 5 gallon (25 litre) home winemaking plastic barrel like us) and leave it to for 48-72 hours.
• Strain the mixture (the fruit makes fantastic marmalade by the way) and leave for another 48 hours.
• We then siphon it all to another container, leaving the sediment behind and then we add 1 crushed Camden tablet per gallon of cordial
• Shake well, and then leave for 3-4 hours to settle
• Bottle
• If you don’t want to use two large containers, then you will need to add a crushed Camden tablet at the rate of 1 per gallon (1/2 a tablet to a 4 pint milk container for example) and carefully siphon directly into that. Shake the bottle well after you have filled it and do the top up tightly. Shake it again an hour or two later to make sure the tablet has dissolved. It will then keep for ages - as in years.

Always, always use sterilised bottles. If they fit in the microwave – 15 seconds will kill anything. Otherwise put glass bottles in your oven (load them in when it is cold, and then run it up to about 140C, leave it there for 10-15 minutes and let it cool. The final solution is to use Milton or plain old very hot water (we have loads of olive oil bottles with screw caps and we put them all in the dishwasher on the hottest wash without washing powder.

If the citric or tartaric acid and Camden tablets are left out you can keep elder flower cordial in the fridge for several weeks. For longer than that store (in plastic not glass) in the deep freeze. With the acid it will keep for 3-4 months and with the pills elderflower cordial keeps almost indefinitely.

Dilute to taste (about 1:5) and Enjoy

Elderflower Cordial Recipe by
Frances Bosdari is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at
http://blog.ashridgetrees.co.uk.